KVR Audio

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:21 am

do you always respond without reading people's posts?

Maybe not always, but often

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:52 am

I was thinking about guitar tone in the car again, which is not uncommon. I'm always listening to tunes to see what kind of guitar sound is being used.

Ya know, a LOT of the time, when you listen to the guitar in isolation, the tone isn't even all that good. That's what does my nut in about people who are so crazy about dialing in this elusive 'perfect' tone. Like Eric Johnson. Visionary player, but a complete 'voodoo' witch-doctor about tone. I mean, you can get a super-sweet tone and if the frequencies are competing with the bass or organ part for space, the song could sound like shit!

Drives me nuts. I listen to songs that I love, and sometimes I go, "Holy crap, that guitar tone is fricking HORRIBLE" but I've loved the song for years and had never noticed before because I wasn't concentrating on the guitar tone but rather listening to the song.

That's a successful tone-- it completes the song and sounds right for the song, no matter if as an 'individual' tone it's kinda weak.

I find that true guitarists are usually open-minded about it. (Usually... some people are nutters) It's the idiots who try to compensate for lack of vision and ability by becoming acolytes of "tone" that give guitarists a bad name. Many folks (like Hink, Sascha, or whoever) DO want a great tone, but they also want the RIGHT tone. That's my kind of guitarist.

Greg

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:08 am

... and it's those sort of guitarist who have an open mind about tubes vs solid state vs digital.

ResonantOrder · Post by **ResonantOrder** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:24 am

I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.

Jafo · Post by **Jafo** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:31 am

ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:41 am

That RULES, RO.

Plexi Head · Post by **Plexi Head** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:52 am

Trojan Badger wrote:I feel a bit like a heretic. I've just been trying to get a really strong, thick but not insane overdrive/distortion sound. And going through Amplitube it was really, really hard to find. And then, to my horror, I found it - in the Solid State section.

Up until this point I thought only heathens and poodleheads liked solid state. Is there actually a place for it?

Any other closet transistor lovers out there? It's a bit like all those Pot Noodle advertisements...

Roland JC 120 can't be beat, especially two in stereo. I remember reading that Joe Satriani recorded the track "Flying in a blue Dream" through a
distortion pedal into a JC 120.

Holdsworth also has used solid state extensively.

Plexi Head · Post by **Plexi Head** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:05 am

Hink wrote:
Brain May of Queen used a home-brew transistor battery amp.
maybe when he was a kid...live he used 9 Vox AC30's stacked three high and three acoss and a custom made modulator pedal (I believe of his own design, he's brilliant and well educated)....of course most people know the tale of his guitar...

Still one of the greatest moments of my life was seeing Brian May and Queen play live. He had this wall of Vox AC30's behind him. What a tone. I have read that when recording he opted for a 15 watt Vox over the AC30

kilroy · Post by **kilroy** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:24 pm

Plexi Head wrote:I have read that when recording he opted for a 15 watt Vox over the AC30

I can understand that. Those wee Vox cabinets recorded really well, and mixed in a track easier than an AC30 especially when alot of layers were the order of the day.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:31 pm

ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.

Excellent! What part of Tejas are you in?

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:28 pm

Stupid American Pig wrote:
ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.
Excellent! What part of Tejas are you in?

obviously the Austin area...

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:30 pm

Hink wrote:
Stupid American Pig wrote:
ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.
Excellent! What part of Tejas are you in?
obviously the Austin area...

Go back to yer Chowdah...

ResonantOrder · Post by **ResonantOrder** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:38 pm

Hink wrote:
Stupid American Pig wrote:
ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.
Excellent! What part of Tejas are you in?
obviously the Austin area...

I lived in Austin for about ten years. The yuppies ruined the place, so I moved outside of Abilene. Much cheaper here. I pulled that stunt 1996? 1997?

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:52 pm

ResonantOrder wrote:
Hink wrote:
Stupid American Pig wrote:
ResonantOrder wrote:I've always found Eric Johnson to be rather strange.

I used to work with his wife. One time he stored his guitar in the office. I snuck in there for a few minutes and played Master of Puppets. It's probably the only time that song was played on that guitar. It still makes me giggle.
Excellent! What part of Tejas are you in?
obviously the Austin area...
I lived in Austin for about ten years. The yuppies ruined the place, so I moved outside of Abilene. Much cheaper here. I pulled that stunt 1996? 1997?

I was at Fort Hood from 78-81...I spent a lot of mty free time in Austin and/or in Georgetown...There was a cool place to swim in Georgetown with cliffs to dive off of. Austin had a good club then (in a shopping center) called Mother's Earth, I saw some cool bands there...I also met SRV back then (in Killeen) and we use to like to go to Wayne Charvels guitar shop in Austin, at the time he was known for painting guitars...fwiw we went to hippy hollow once..

During the truckers strike of 1980 we were called on to pick some slack and for a month I drove in convoys from FT Hood to Abilene hauling JP4 jet fuel...one group drove from SAP's area to us, then we continued the trip to Abilene...though I don't remember much about Abilene I seem to remember it had the same kind of reputation as Nolanville did then...speed trap city...is it still that way?

After getting out of the service I moved back to Texas and lived near Chase (sort of) I lived in Lewisville (fighting farmers

) But I didn't last long...I remembered why I left to begin with...nothing wrong with Texas, but a New Englander like me needs 4 seasons, real trees, a hill or two is nice...and of course the colors of New England. The lush green of the summer, the beauty of fall, the purity of freshly fallen snow...besides I put the AC on at about 65 degrees...

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:26 pm

The transistor amp the Brian May used for recording was built by his bass player. It was made from a radio salvaged from a tip, it ran from a 9 volt battery and had no volume control.

Recently, VOX and May tried to cash in on this idea, and they made the Brian May recording amp. Unfortunatley, they missed the whole idea. They made it AC powered, not DC, and they made it 10 watts (not half a watt). So it is NOTHING like the real thing as used on Bohemian Rhapsody etc. It's a good little practice amp, and it's useable for recording, but it is disappointingly not like the real thing.

Millions of people don't want to hear this information, but there is a huge difference between the amazing guitar rigs that you see on stage, and the actual devices used to make those classic records. When an amp maker endorses a band, they want to see their largest, most expensive amps and cabs prominently displayed. Fortunately, that is a good visual effect that makes the band look good and powerful. What the audience doesn't need to know, is that often the amp sound is coming from a small amp somewhere else, maybe under the stage or in an isolation cabinet. Have you ever wondered how come the players aren't deafed, and have feedback problemss from that wall of amps? It's because most of them are never used.

Small amps (1/2 watt or battery amps) have been used on many classic recordings. They are relatively immune from AC hum, so they are very useful. Think of violin type sounds. A violin is quite small in size - small speakers are very useful, and can sound fatter than 12" speakers.

Obviously tube amps are still widely used and favored. But there is very definately a big place for solid state amps, and nothing is ever quite what it seems in the theatrical world of rock.

Is it wrong to like solid state?